Читать книгу Where the Road Ends - Tara Quinn Taylor - Страница 11

Squealing out onto County Road 215, gravel flying behind her, Amy choked back emotion until she could no longer feel the acidic burning inside her. She was going to get this woman.

Kathy had taken Charles. Amy knew it as surely as if Johnny were speaking to her from heaven. Knew it despite what Brad and the police had said. The feeling was stronger than intuition. Stronger than desperation.

The first bend didn’t faze her. She leaned to the right as the powerful car took the curve, her eyes intent on the road unfolding before her. A straight stretch. But the two-lane road gave her nothing she wanted. No green Grand Am. Only a slow-moving rusty blue pickup with two sheep in its bed, a bearded and bent old man at the wheel, and windows so clouded she could hardly see through them. It was blocking her view.

“Damn!”

Jerking the wheel to the left, Amy crossed the center yellow line far enough to see beyond the truck. A station wagon was coming from the opposite direction.

“Get out of my way,” she growled at the driver of the pickup, which was only inches from her front bumper. Every second these people took from her gave Kathy an edge.

The station wagon passed. Amy crossed the center line again. A sport utility vehicle was coming at her now. And then another pickup truck.

The car’s defrost was blowing at full speed. Every muscle in her body tense, Amy rode the back of the blue pickup, laying on her horn, willing the driver to get nervous and pull over. He was doing ten miles under the speed limit. It wasn’t fair.

But then, life wasn’t fair. Nothing had been made clearer to Amy these past months. Intellectually she’d always known that, but now she understood what it really meant, understood—viscerally, emotionally—how it felt to be the recipient of perpetual unfairness. Life had never been fair. Her privileged existence had simply made her unaware of it.

The pickup driver didn’t slow down and pull over to let her pass. He didn’t speed up. With nearly frozen fingers she pulled the cheap black gloves from her pocket and put them on.

It took her a precious ten minutes to finally get around the old man. Ten minutes that stretched her already dangerously taut nerves.

Engine roaring as it slipped into high gear, the Thunderbird sped up till the speedometer needle flew to the end of its range. The road continued straight for a mile or two. And there were no cars in sight. At least not on the side of the road that mattered to her. The damn blue pickup had given Kathy a chance to get away.

When Amy started to wonder if the driver of the pickup was an accomplice of Kathy’s—perhaps he’d even hidden her the night before—she gave herself a mental shake. She couldn’t afford this kind of paranoia; it only obscured her goal. Okay, she’d lost ten minutes. She’d find them. The roads were clear, the day crisp and sunny. At the rate she was driving, it shouldn’t take more than half an hour to catch up with Kathy.

So she started to plan. How was she going to handle the apprehension? Call the police? They’d exonerated the younger woman.

She had to stay calm. Act precisely, correctly, to ensure that her new life with Charles began that day, immediately. There would be no further investigating. No charges filed against Kathy for illegal behavior. All Amy wanted was her son.

Glancing at her speedometer, she frowned. The illegal behavior in question might well be hers—a traffic violation. She kept her foot on the gas. So what if she got a speeding ticket?

She’d willingly pay.

“I need your help.”

Clutching his cell phone—it was the number she always called—Brad Dorchester looked out at, but didn’t see, the panoramic view of snowy Denver from the thirtieth-floor window of his office high-rise.

“Amy,” he said, the stiff muscles in his jaw making words difficult. “Where are you?”

Would there be time for him to save her pretty ass?

“On the road. It was Kathy I was following yesterday, Brad. I saw her again this morning—at a convenience store across the street. The clerk and a customer both ID’d her from her picture.”

Brad’s gaze returned to his office. To the mass of papers and photos and reports spread on the conference-size table across the room. He didn’t have to look at them to know what they contained. He knew them all by rote, played them over and over in his mind like an irritatingly catchy tune.

The papers and photos represented hundreds of hours of work—all generated because of one very small boy. Charles Wainscoat Dunn.

Brad shook his head, then wrapped one hand around the back of his neck, which had taken on a habitual soreness. He had all the information. And it wasn’t doing a damn bit of good.

Dared he hope that his second thorough investigation of the world of construction business would turn up something new?

“Did you follow her?” He hated to ask. Hated to give Amelia Wainscoat any encouragement in her current endeavor.

“I’m trying, Brad,” she said now. His stomach sank at her eagerness. “I’ve been on 215—you know one of those two-lane roads that—”

“—only go to one place,” he finished for her. He knew. Not only had he been up and down them himself, he’d been hearing her talk about them for months. Picturing her racing over them all alone in a vain search that was going to kill her sooner or later.

If not physically, then emotionally and mentally. He just wasn’t sure which would come first.

“I haven’t seen her since she left the convenience store. I’m approaching M-43, which ends in South Haven. She’d have to take the highway from there.”

If anything happened to Amelia Wainscoat while she was out there trying to do his job, he was sure as hell going to end up carrying that guilt around forever. He didn’t appreciate the burden.

Goddammit! If she’d just let him concentrate on doing his job, instead of making him waste time worrying about her.

“So should I stop in South Haven and risk letting her get farther ahead of me, or do I skip the town and risk the possibility that she might have stopped there?”

“I’d check the town. If she didn’t stop, it won’t take long to figure that out.”

He couldn’t believe he was giving her reinforcement to continue with this futile course.

“But what if she went on ahead?”

Phone lodged between his ear and his shoulder, Brad rolled up the sleeves of the white cotton shirt he’d tucked into his slacks at an ungodly hour that morning. “She’ll only have an hour or so. It shouldn’t be hard to follow her trail.”

“Okay.”

“Amy, I’m putting some of my men on this.” Even though he knew the nanny was a dead end. He’d assigned two men to make absolutely certain of that. They’d checked every aspect of her background, spent weeks doing surveillance—and they’d come up with nothing.

“Good.”

He’d already called in the license plate number. “Keep your phone on. I’ll be checking in every hour. Call me sooner if you find anything.”

“Okay.”

He studied the table across the room again. He could rearrange the papers there. Stare at the photos until he went blind. And still, the facts weren’t going to change.

“She was exonerated, Amy.”

“I know.”

“She’s perfectly free to travel across the state of Michigan, or any other state, for that matter.”

“She left town right after the police dropped her as a suspect and she’s been missing ever since.”

“Who, besides you, is looking for her? The police aren’t. And after all the negative publicity, who could blame her for starting over?”

Amy ignored his remark. “I’m going to spend the rest of my days hunting her down if that’s what it takes.”

“If you find her, don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t.”

Why didn’t he feel confident about that?

“What should I do?” she asked. “If I find her, I mean.”

Questions like that really scared him. She didn’t even have a goddamned plan.

“Nothing,” he said, his feet landing on the floor as he pushed away from his desk and stood. “You should go home and let my men take care of this.”

“I’m going to question her, but what’s the right tactic?” Amy continued, ignoring him. “Do I act friendly and pretend this is a great coincidence, try to reestablish some trust? Or do I try to bluff her with the idea of some new evidence, hoping I can scare her into a confession?”

Jaw so tight he couldn’t speak, Brad wandered over to the conference table. With his free hand in the pocket of a pair of navy Dockers he stared down at the array of documents, picturing, instead, the beautiful and completely out-of-her-element heiress alone on a county road in Michigan.

“Come on, Brad, I don’t have much time. I’ve just taken the South Haven turnoff.”

“Stay out of this, Amy,” he muttered, refusing to acknowledge the cold sweat slinking down his back. “If you do find her, and that’s a big if, I don’t want you going near her. Keep her in sight, call me immediately and don’t do another damn thing.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it, Amy.”

“I know. She bought animal crackers, Brad. And two ice-cream bars. Not one, two.”

Animal crackers and ice-cream bars. Charles’s favorite foods.

If Amelia Wainscoat really found her ex-nanny, she wasn’t going to wait quietly on the sidelines. Kathy Stead would be lucky if she wasn’t down at the first count.

And then Brad would be wasting time getting his client out of jail rather than doing what she was paying him to do. Find her missing son.

“Amy.”

“Gotta go, Brad. I’m just getting into town. It’s quaint. Quiet. Old-fashioned shops with angled curb parking. I don’t see the Grand Am yet….”

“Amy…” Men who’d been trained to kill were intimidated by that tone.

“I know, Brad.” Her voice would have been weary if not for the excitement that tinged it. “I’ll call you.”

He said her name again, but was met with a click as she hung up.

Swearing, Brad started to count to ten to cool down before he talked to her again. He made it to three before hitting speed dial.

“Yeah?” She didn’t conceal her irritation.

She was irritated?

“Don’t bluff. You’ll risk getting any ensuing confession thrown out of court.”

This time it was Brad who disconnected. But only because he had some favors to call in. He wanted a man on Amelia Wainscoat’s tail in the next half hour. Which meant finding an off-duty cop in the state of Michigan who’d be glad to make some extra money.

That done, satisfied that he’d hired a man he could trust, one who came with the highest recommendation from one of his ex-FBI buddies, Brad had a conference call with his Wainscoat team, Diane Smith and Doug Blyth, two of the country’s best investigators, who each had another four or five leg-work men reporting to them. Together they decided on a couple of guys they could pull from their current assignments. These two would be sent to Michigan on the next available flights.

His last call was to request that the plane Ms. Wainscoat had provided for his private use be gassed up and ready to go, just in case.

The only thing keeping him from heading straight to Michigan was that damn phone call he might or might not get. As much as he needed to do something besides stand in his office and stare at papers that led him nowhere, he couldn’t risk being in the air—where he couldn’t keep his cell on—if Amy called him.

Knowing her, she wouldn’t try twice.

Clementine’s was nice as far as bar-and-grill joints went. Its warmth was almost a shock after the bone-chilling January cold. With its long, historical bar and lots of tables and booths for friends and families to eat and enjoy themselves, the restaurant had a welcoming feel. But no one there had seen Kathy Stead. Nor had they seen her at the department store, a place whose wooden floors spoke of another era, a simpler time when kids could wander downtown by themselves. When parents didn’t have to worry about some maniac stealing them away.

On her way out of town, Amy picked up her phone with fingers stiff from cold and hit redial. More because she couldn’t stand to be alone with herself, with her disappointment, than because she had any real desire to speak with Brad Dorchester. The man depressed her.

Still, she’d told him she’d call. And there was a small but persistent part of her that trusted him implicitly, that wanted to feed him every single piece of knowledge she had in case it was the one thing he could use.

A part of her that needed to know she wasn’t doing this alone.

He picked up in the middle of the first ring.

“She wasn’t there. I’m on 196 heading north.” The two-lane highway was only slightly easier to travel than M-43.

“I’ve got someone heading up M-43 into South Haven and beyond in case you missed something.”

Amy nodded. Brad was taking her seriously.

Still, tension ate away at her regained sense of control.

“What’s your man going to do if he finds her?” As she’d already revealed to Brad, she had no concrete plan for getting information from the woman who’d managed to dupe the Chicago police and FBI into thinking she was innocent. Up to this point, her plan had always been about finding Kathy. And nothing about what she’d do when she actually did.

“Ask questions,” Brad said. “Try to get her to reveal something. It’s all he can do.”

“What kind of questions?”

A long pause. And then a sigh. “You’re in way over your head, Amy. Go home.”

The grassy median, brown now from the winter cold, sped by her window. Pine trees grew in the distance. “What kind of questions?” she asked again.

“Anything to keep her talking. Maybe ask her about a tire on her car needing air. Maybe about the food in the restaurant she stopped at. He’ll know what to do. The idea is to get her to disclose anything at all about her life. Where she’s been. Where she’s going. Why. And hopefully, if he can keep her talking long enough, she’ll give us a detail that’ll crack this case.”

He paused and she could hear him sigh a second time. “Details. It so often comes down to details.”

Amy quickly cataloged his response. When she found Kathy, she’d be ready. While the car heater blew steadily, warming her skin, her heart remained completely unaffected.

“What if she won’t tell me anything?” she asked, her mind already skipping ahead, playing out a full scenario. “I can’t just let her walk away.”

“She’d better not tell you anything because you’d better not be talking to her. My men will get her to talk, Amy. It’s what they’re trained to do. If not at first, they’ll just happen to turn up wherever she stops next. Go home. Let us do our job.”

Yeah, and if she’d done that, his men would still be in Wisconsin or Chicago or Washington, D.C. or wherever else they’d been looking. If not for her, they wouldn’t have any idea that Kathy Stead was traveling on an innocuous strip of highway in western Michigan.

“I’m going to stop in every small town along the way until I find someone who’s seen her,” she replied.

“Keep in mind that you’re doing this against my advice.”

“I know.”

“Call every half hour.” Brad’s voice was gruff, impatient. He was obviously not prepared to entertain any arguments.

She might have argued, anyway, except that he hung up.

And the loneliness once again consumed her.

“No, ma’am, no one here’s seen her.” The middle-aged woman at Monroe’s Café and Grill in Saugatuck handed the snapshot back to Amy with an odd, not quite suspicious but not entirely sympathetic look. “Is she your sister?”

“No.” Amy took the photo, eager to move on. “Just an old high-school friend who used to live in these parts.” She tried to deliver her spiel with some of the ease she usually exhibited. “She’s remarried and I don’t know her new name or I’d just look her up in the phone book.”

Shoulders relaxing, the other woman nodded, her brown eyes warming. “I wish we could be more help,” she said. “Have you tried the sheriff’s office in Douglas? It’s over the bridge, a little past the Holiday Inn. They’d probably know if she lived around here.”

Amy nodded, tucked the picture into the pocket of her parka, thanked the woman and hurried back out into the cold.

Saugatuck appeared to be a tourist town, judging by the marina, shops and bed-and-breakfast places she passed. But it was a small one, although it had its share of big old aluminum-sided homes in pleasant, shady neighborhoods. As quickly as possible, Amy perused as much of the town as she could manage, stopping at Mario’s Pizza, a convenience store and a couple of motels that weren’t name brand. She gave the artists’ shops a miss. Something told her Kathy would not be in the mood for shopping.

And then, as she turned, looking beyond the big trees that lined the town, her heart stopped. Just for a moment. But it was long enough to take her breath away. And to let panic in. There, by the lake, was a ferry. The perfect way for a woman—and her car—to disappear. Amy swore. She tried to take a deep breath to prevent the tears that threatened from falling.

Kathy could already have left. Gone. Missing again.

And if she had, Amy would have to wait who knew how long for the next ferry. By that time, her ex-nanny could be anywhere. Her hand came down hard on the steering wheel. Why the hell did this keep happening?

Johnny? Are you up there? Help.

The Butler served great steaks, a neon sign told her as she drove past to the ferry.

And the Bayside Inn had suites with fireplaces.

A worn wooden sign proclaimed the existence of the Singapore Yacht Club. The deserted facility did not deliver the promise of its expensive-sounding name.

The bandstand by the ferry was completely desolate. Forlorn-looking. Not even the ducks were venturing out in this cold.

Maybe the ferry would follow. Maybe it, too, would remain inactive, not operating on such a bone-chilling day.

Of course, Amy wasn’t that lucky. As the cold seeped through her jeans, she stood by the dock and waited while the elderly ferry worker thought back over his morning.

“No, miss, we’ve only had a couple of families and a few business travelers today,” he told her when she inquired about the day’s passengers.

“You’re sure you haven’t seen a green Grand Am? Or a woman who looks like this?”

She showed him the weathered snapshot again, just to make sure his old eyes really saw the woman depicted there. Her fingers were shaking, though from the cold penetrating her body or the stress consuming it she had no idea.

He held the photo close to his face.

“I’m sure,” he finally said, still studying Kathy’s image. “I haven’t seen her.”

Amy’s cheeks hurt as she broke into a grin. “Thank you, sir,” she said, and half skipped back to her car. This time no was a good answer.

Brad called. Three of his investigators were covering western Michigan. One was behind her. One in front of her. And one was taking the off-shoot roads. Amy was relieved to hear the news, but she couldn’t rest.

She did, however, take the time to scout out the elementary school in Saugatuck after her visit to the sheriff’s office turned up nothing. Or rather, the elementary school in Douglas, Saugatuck’s neighboring town. They split educational responsibilities; Saugatuck had the high school, Douglas, kindergarten to grade six.

If Kathy was living nearby with Charles, he might, at that very moment, be in Douglas Elementary. Learning to read. Or to do simple math.

Maybe playing in the schoolyard.

Amy hoped Charles had a warm coat with a hood. He’d always been prone to ear infections during the winter months.

But then, Kathy would know that. She was the one who’d taken Amy’s son to the doctor, picked up his prescriptions and more often than not, administered them. It had usually been Kathy—or Johnny—who was up nights, walking with the crying toddler, soothing him, while Amy got a few hours sleep before having to face another day of high-pressure meetings with powerful men who frequently tried to get the best of the young woman doing a man’s job.

Her father’s job.

William they’d trusted. With Amy, during those first two years, they’d withheld judgment until she’d proved herself worthy of their confidence. William’s Amelia had always been respected, but more because William thought the sun rose and set on her than because of her MBA.

From the time of her mother’s death in a car accident when Amelia was less than a year old, the child had been a regular at the Wainscoat offices. She and William had been closer than most fathers and daughters, enjoying each other’s company, sharing each other’s vision of life, the world and, of course, the business. When he died so unexpectedly, Amelia might have died, too, if not for Charles. And Johnny. And the sudden responsibility that had been thrust on her—to run the company her father had spent his life building.

Amy looked at the Kid’s Stuff Park across the street from Douglas Elementary. Not a soul in sight.

The school, a one-story brick building that took up almost an acre, was on Randolph, right off Blue Star Highway. Two white mobile units were the first thing she saw as she pulled into the almost full parking lot. Friday morning, nearly eleven. Too early for lunch. School would still be in session.

Cut-out snowflakes adorned the classroom windows. They upset her. She was missing out on all the art projects made by tiny hands.

Please, God, don’t let Charles be missing out on them, too.

The playground behind the school was as empty as the bandstand had been. Empty, cold, unfriendly.

Hoping she wouldn’t be stopped, Amy parked and headed into the building like the CEO she was. As though she had every right to be there. As though she’d never been told no in her life.

With a competence born of habit, she scanned the hallways, determined the school’s layout and then quickly peeked into the classrooms on both sides of the corridor. It didn’t take her long to locate the kindergarten. Or to see that her son was not among the children there.

It took her a lot longer to dispel the heavy darkness descending on her as she smiled at a passing administrator and made her way back to her car. Leaving her gloves off, she started the engine.

Why did she let her hopes rise every single damn time? Why couldn’t she just wait until she found out the results before she even thought about celebrating? Why, whenever she came to a new town, did she have to envision her reunion with her son? Play it out in glorious detail so that each time the dream died, it was that much more painful?

But Amy knew why she didn’t stop, why she let her hopes build. Because as soon as she quit hoping, her life might as well be finished.

It was those images of Charles’s little arms wrapped around her that got her out of bed every morning. That kept her eyes open and her mind clear while she continued, day after day, to venture into the unknown for something that might not be there.

She had to believe.

It was that or die.